Now or Never. PENNY JORDAN
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needs you, when they reach their teens?’
Alice couldn’t bear to look at either Maggie or Nicki. The silence between them was bad enough, armed with spikily dangerous emotions. Stella, she could see, was frowning, and looking as though she was about to give them both a lecture.
Desperate to avert the disaster she could see looming Alice burst out frantically, ‘I’ve got some news to tell you all as well!’
‘Don’t tell us that you’re pregnant too!’ Stella demanded, giving her a wry look. ‘Mind you somehow in your case it wouldn’t be that surprising, Alice. You’ve always had that earth mother look about you, and as we all know your Stuart is very highly sexed!’
Whilst Alice blushed, Maggie made a brave attempt at a slightly crooked smile, but Nicki’s face still looked as though it had been turned to stone.
‘We always used to have to ring you before coming round, in case Stuart had slipped home and taken you to bed,’ Stella reminded her dryly.
‘Yes, he put a lock on the inside of the bedroom door to keep the children out,’ Maggie agreed.
‘Remember that water bed he wanted to buy?’
‘Stop it, all of you,’ Alice protested, but she was smiling now as well. ‘That was years ago, when we were young,’ she reproved them all mock primly. ‘Anyway, I’m not pregnant! It’s nothing like that. I’ve applied for and been accepted on an Open University course.’
There was a small silence whilst they all looked at her with varying degrees of amused kindness.
Because they thought her news wasn’t important, or because they thought that she simply did not have what it took to carry her plans through?
Why, when they were her friends, did she sometimes feel as though secretly, inwardly, they felt that she was inferior to them; that they treated her more as a junior member of their group than an equal? Why was it that people just never seemed to show respect for her and for her needs?
‘Goodness, Alice, if I’d known you’d got that kind of spare time I’d have co-opted you onto one of my committees,’ Stella was saying briskly.
‘What good news. I’m so pleased for you,’ Maggie offered warmly.
‘You’re a lot braver than I am,’ was Nicki’s slightly terse contribution. ‘I find it hard enough keeping up with Joey’s homework—just one of the pleasures of motherhood that’s going to come as quite a culture shock to you, Maggie,’ she added grimly.
‘Well, it’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time,’ Alice admitted, valiantly trying to ignore Nicki’s barbed comment. ‘More for my own satisfaction than anything else.’
Her own satisfaction; those years and that sense of self she had suddenly started feeling that her early marriage had robbed her of? Once she would have immediately expressed those feelings to the others, but now somehow she felt reticent about doing so, and about revealing her small dreams for their probably critical inspection. After all, they had hardly greeted her news with any degree of awe or admiration, had they? If anything, it had fallen rather flat.
‘I need the loo,’ Maggie announced, pink-faced, as she stood up. As she made her way across the restaurant she refused to allow herself to mourn the little daydreams she had been entertaining of having her friends reminisce about their pregnancies, bonding with her in her joy and excitement; teasing her for her shy uncertainty about things they were experts on.
Tensely Nicki watched her go.
‘Don’t look at me like that,’ she said grimly to Alice and Stella. ‘You know I’m right! If Maggie had wanted to be a mother she had ample opportunity to do so when she was married to Dan. Look, I’m going to go. Here’s enough to cover my share of the bill,’ she told Stella, pushing some money towards her.
‘Nicki …’ Alice protested unhappily, but Nicki simply shook her head and got up.
‘Oh, dear,’ Alice sighed, watching her leave.
‘I can understand how she feels, but she did go a little bit over the top,’ Stella pronounced judicially. When Alice looked uncertainly at her, she explained, ‘The probabilities are that Maggie is having this baby for all the wrong reasons. She has always been inclined to be impetuous, we all know that. She should be acting her age.’
Alice frowned as she caught the note of angry bitterness in Stella’s voice. What was wrong with them all tonight? Why did they seem to be so at odds with one another?
‘It would be awful if Maggie and Nicki quarrelled,’ she said, searching Stella’s face for signs that she shared her anxiety and disquiet. ‘She and Maggie have always been so close. We’ve all always been so close. Our friendship is a very important part of all our lives, isn’t it?’ she pressed.
In the ladies’ room, Maggie ran cool water over her wrists and tried to compose herself.
Her face was burning with pain and anger. This was not how she had envisaged her news being received. There was no laughter or sense of closeness bonding the others to her now, Maggie recognised. And for Nicki, Nicki of all people, to react in the way that she had!
As she returned to their table Alice told her awkwardly, ‘Nicki said to say goodbye. She had to go. I think she was worried about Joey. He doesn’t like Laura, apparently.’
Alice was lying to her, Maggie knew. Nicki had left because of her! Because of her baby!
As though she sensed what she was feeling Alice told her, ‘Don’t be upset by what Nicki said, Maggie. You’ve given us all a shock and Nicki …’
‘And Nicki is the same age as me and the mother of a nine-year-old son, but, of course, it’s different for her. After all, we all know how much Nicki wanted to have children; she even stayed with that rat of a husband of hers long after she should have left because she wanted to conceive so much. Now there’s irresponsibility for you, if you like. Nicki was being physically abused by Carl, and we all suspected it, but she lied to protect him, and she would have had his child, even though the statistics she’s so fond of quoting prove that physically abusive men often abuse their children as well as their wives!’
‘Come on, Maggie. We understand how upset you are, but that’s not—’ Stella began.
‘It’s not what?’ Maggie demanded. ‘It’s not fair of me to criticise Nicki, but it’s perfectly acceptable for her to criticise me?’
‘Oh, Maggie,’ Alice begged unhappily. ‘That wasn’t what Stella was trying to say … We’ve been friends for so long, we can’t let a little thing like this—’
‘A little thing? Is that how you see my baby, Alice? As something little and unimportant? Is that how all of you see me? Well, let me tell you, this baby, Oliver’s baby, my baby, means more to me than anything else, and that includes your friendship!’
‘Maggie, calm down,’ Stella intervened. ‘This isn’t doing you or the baby any good. Look, let’s get the bill. Then we can all go home and sleep on things.’
‘Yes!’ Alice agreed with obvious relief. ‘You did say that you didn’t want to be late anyway, didn’t you, Stella?’
Outside the restaurant they exchanged their customary hugs and kisses, but Maggie could sense awkwardness and constraint in place of their usual closeness. And it was all her fault. At least, that was obviously what the other three thought!
‘You know, I can’t help thinking that Nicki might have a point,’ Stella commented as Alice drove out of the car park. ‘I mean, Maggie has never been maternal. And if she is doing this because of Oliver …’
‘She might never have said that she wanted children, Stella, but she was always terrific with ours. The twins in particular adored her. They thought she was so much fun.’
‘Fun,